Burford
A medieval wool town whose steep High Street of golden stone tumbles down to the River Windrush. Often called the gateway to the Cotswolds, and for good reason: once you arrive, the whole region opens up before you.
A medieval wool town whose steep High Street of golden stone tumbles down to the River Windrush. Often called the gateway to the Cotswolds, and for good reason: once you arrive, the whole region opens up before you.
There are few introductions to the Cotswolds more handsome than Burford's High Street. It drops steeply between rows of honey-coloured buildings, each one slightly different in age and proportion, until it reaches the old stone bridge over the Windrush. In the Middle Ages this was one of the wealthiest wool towns in England, and the prosperity of that era is still legible in every gabled facade, carved lintel and mullioned window. The fifteenth-century Tolsey, a former market house perched on stone pillars above the pavement, now holds a small museum of local history. At the foot of the hill, the Church of St John the Baptist is a quiet revelation: Norman origins, a magnificent spire, and a collection of brasses and monuments that rewards a slow wander through the nave and chapels.
The High Street is lined with antique dealers, independent shops and tea rooms that invite you to lose an afternoon. For lunch or a pint, The Lamb Inn is a handsome Cotswold classic, The Highway Inn serves reliable food in beamed surroundings, and The Royal Oak is a good choice for something less formal. In summer the Priory gardens open their gates, and the riverside meadow below the church is a lovely spot for a picnic. Burford sits about thirty minutes from Well Cottage by car, making it an easy and rewarding half-day out.
Cotswold Wildlife Park is five minutes south of Burford and makes a natural addition to the day — a serious zoological collection with rhinos, snow leopards and penguins in the grounds of a Victorian country house. It is not a theme park but a proper wildlife garden, and it is genuinely excellent for children and adults alike. For those who enjoy antiques, Burford has a concentration of dealers worth taking seriously — furniture, silver and ceramics at prices the London trade would not offer, in rooms that take some unhurried browsing to properly see. The combination of Burford and Bibury in a single day is very manageable: the two villages are thirty minutes apart by a road that crosses some of the best Cotswold country anywhere. Leave Bibury last so the evening light catches Arlington Row on the way home. The road between the two villages runs through Sherborne and along the Windrush valley — quiet, beautiful, and almost entirely free of traffic at most hours. Burford itself is worth revisiting in different seasons: the High Street in early autumn, when the golden stone deepens and the visitor numbers thin, is a different place entirely from the summer crowds, and better for it.
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.